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daichi and kuroo sink deep through toxic seawater with a creeping sense of finality they don’t try to push away - they’re in each other’s heads, after all; there’s no point in trying to hide something both of them feel. kuroo plays it off with lighthearted jokes and sly flirting, like usual, like always.
(like never again.)
(if these are the last few minutes he has, then he doesn’t want them to be any different from how they used to be.)
(“anyone ever tell you how nice your ass looks in a drivesuit?” he’d asked before they stepped into the harnesses.)
(“you have, actually, but thanks anyway,” daichi had said back, rolling his eyes, but he’d known what kuroo was trying to do, known it even without the drift.)
there is an entire ocean’s worth of water weight bearing heavy on their jaeger’s shoulders, but it presses heavy into theirs as well; they walk step-by-step together, farther and farther away from home.
"but i’d rather be here, you know," daichi says, seconds before they feel the kaiju’s roar shoot through the water and shake the metal goliath beneath their feet.
"really? you’d rather be fourteen thousand feet under the ocean instead of at the shatterdome?" kuroo asks. conversation isn’t necessary, not really, but it’s how they do things, how they did them then, and how they do them now.
"no," daichi says, turning his head to look at him. the soft smile on daichi’s face almost kills kuroo, the way it’s fond and exasperated and tired and strong all at once. "i’d rather be here, with you."
"oh," kuroo says, because he knew that, he did; it’s near-impossible not to know what your partner’s thinking in the drift, but he feels his chest tighten anyway, and he’s not even that embarrassed when he stutters over his "thank you". like some silly lovestruck teenager, he thinks, and it almost hurts to entertain the thought, especially when he starts wondering what they could’ve been, in another life, maybe, one where they’d met as boys and fallen in stupid terrible love but they’d have the time, time, time to let it live for just a little longer -
and then the kaiju’s on them, terrifyingly ugly and dangerously ferocious, all snapping teeth and scaly misshapen limbs and they rush forward -
(it’s a fight, of course it is, it always is, their lives are always on the line but this time around it’s different; they know they’re both going to die.)
(so if they say their last goodbyes it’ll never be like the ones they tell each other, without letting them past their lips or reaching for comfort or confirmation; no, those are all things they both gave up when they set foot inside a jaeger.)
(the things you gain when you are in a jaeger: one of them is a time bomb tied with the noose made of hope around your neck, but the other is the guarantee that when you are side by side with your partner, there will never be anything left unsaid.)
so just like that,
everything
ends.
(and there was nothing left unsaid.)
later, when the ocean returns to its floor and the world is saved, their photos go together at the memorial service, wreathed with the same flowers and sitting side
by
side.
it’s almost funny, the way his world narrows down to blips on a screen, kuroo thinks, barely registering the quiet hum of ennoshita’s status updates under his arm. he’s staring hard at the display and his eyes are starting to hurt and his knuckles are white and -
he hears daichi grunt over the transmitter and the wry laugh that follows does terrible, terrible things to his heart. “hey, kuroo, i just wanted to let you know,” daichi says, voice strained and raspy. kuroo leans in unconsciously. “better me than you in here, i think; i’m really glad i don’t have your old man knees right now.”
and kuroo feels the smile on his face like a crack in his entire being because it hurts, it does, but he shuts it down for now, laughs and pretends his heart isn’t being crushed into a pulpy mess. “don’t get cheeky, sawamura,” he says. "but i’ll-"
he stops himself. he’d come so close to saying “i’ll get you back for that when you come back” but he’d almost forgotten, he’d almost forgotten -
daichi isn’t coming back.
"i’ll let that one slide," he says instead, shoving his hands into his pockets.
a static burst of laughter. “you ready?”
"it’s been a pleasure, captain," daichi’s co-pilot says, and kuroo mouths the words with him, shoulders stiff.
explosions sound a lot like the feeling of emptiness, kuroo thinks.
the glowing light representing daichi disappears and kuroo - kuroo doesn’t let himself crumble, doesn’t let himself falter. he looks back at everyone assembled in the room, looks back at the control panel; ennoshita scoots aside, and kuroo slides into command with a kind of familiarity he almost resents.
but he can’t afford any of that, not right now -
(“congratulations, you did it,” he says when everything draws to an end, when there are two survivors out in the ocean and neither of them are daichi. he sets the microphone down and the room swells into celebration, all hallelujahs and rejoice and it feels like being bathed in the payoff from desperate hope, it really does.)
(it’s just, it’s just -)
(“you did it,” he says later, standing in front of flowers and a framed picture. “i hope you know that your little comment about my knees was very unnecessary, though.")
(he keeps talking. he’s always been good at that. “your jacket’s still at my place and it smells like you dumped way too much laundry detergent in the washing machine. what i’m trying to say is that it smells really good and it shouldn’t because you don’t even try to make yourself smell good, you just do and that’s - that’s unfair, you know that, right? you just - you’re unfair in general, god damn it.”)
(nobody else is there - the memorial service is over and done with, the bouquets heaped high and frail. daichi wouldn’t have known what to do with all the flowers, but he’d’ve appreciated them anyway, he would’ve said “thank you” with the same honest smile he’s got in the picture. kuroo closes his eyes for a few seconds, and when he opens them, it’s so he can smile back. “you did it,” he says again. “you saved the world, you big damn hero, and you always did say you wanted a world where we didn’t have to be afraid.”)
(he exhales. “yeah. now that you’re already gone, i guess there’s nothing left to fear, is there?”)
(and there isn’t.)